Middleboro man loses appeal in 2003 murder

BOSTON -- The state appeals court on Monday denied a former prison guard’s bid for a new trial in the 2003 murder of a 26-year-old Kingston man.

The court upheld the conviction of former Middleboro resident Darren Caswell, 49, in the fatal stabbing of Matthew S. Cote Aug. 13, 2003.

Caswell is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder.

Cote’s body was found in the back of his pickup truck, burned beyond recognition in a remote area of Carver. He had been stabbed to death, most likely with a screwdriver, before his body and his truck were set afire.

Caswell and Cote were linked to the late Russell D. Freitas of Middleboro, a wheelchair-bound quadraplegic who was described as a drug dealer during the trial. Prosecutors said Cote was addicted to the painkiller Oxycontin after be began taking it for a broken wrist. Freitas, who was paralyzed in an off-roading accident, had a prescription for the drug and sold pills to Cote for $40 each. According to testimony at the trial, he was killed because he owed Freitas $300. After the murder, Freitas kept a picture of the burned pickup truck on his computer and occasionally used it as a screen saver.

Caswell was indicted in 2009, months after retiring from the Bridgewater correctional facility on a $33,000-a-year pension.

During the investigation Caswell, a cousin of Freitas, told investigators he did not know that Cote would be killed.

Caswell was tied to the killing by a witness who told the grand jury that he gave Freitas a ride on the night of the murder. As the two drove through the back roads of Carver, Freitas said into his cell phone “I’m not a big fan of duck. Make sure you cook it well.”

Shortly after that Freitas told the witness to stop on Tremont Street in Carver. Caswell came out of the woods dressed in black, a few hundred yards from where Cote’s body was found a day later.

Defense attorney Kevin J. Reddington appealed on the grounds that Judge Paul E. Troy’s jury instructions and the prosecutor’s closing argument were improper and that there was insufficient evidence that Caswell participated in a joint venture to murder Cote. He said the effect of the errors denied Caswell a fair trial.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Frederick L. Brown agreed that a statement by the prosecutor in closing arguments that a key witness in the case had been “vetted” by the grand jury was out of bounds.

“The manner in which the prosecutor handled the issue of the witnesses' credibility was not only careless, but patently unfair,” Brown wrote.

“The toxic language here -- “vetted by (the) grand jury” -- was objected to by defense counsel, and the trial judge incorrectly overruled the objection and then went on unfortunately to bless this grossly unfair and unduly prejudicial assertion.”.

Justices R. Malcolm Graham and Diana Maldonado agreed that the use of the term “vetted” was improper, but held that it did not affect the outcome of the trial. They voted to uphold the conviction.

Caswell will be eligible for parole in 2025.

Scroll down to read the ruling.

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